Making Beds
by SilverWijida
Summary: Ch. 6 added. There are times when the past is best left alone...and others when even the strongest of individuals has to find the strength to face her past to be able to deal with her future.
1. Ghosts

Making Beds  
By: Manda and Allison  
E-mail: cafe_night_owl@yahoo.com, GeckoGal21@lycos.com  
Archive: ShipperWorld, The Graveyard, Beautiful Addictions, Working Love Archive, All others please ask.  
  
Summary: There are times when the past is best left alone...and others when even the strongest of individuals has to find the strength to face her past to be able to deal with her future.  
Rated: PG-13  
  
Disclaimer: We do not own CSI. All rights to the show and its characters are owned by CBS, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Anthony Zuiker.  
  
A/N: A second attempt at co-authorship for us. We have all the GraveShift Group to thank. You guys are great. WE hope all of you enjoy this fic....  
  
Chapter 1: Ghosts  
  
She stepped off the plane, feeling the dry effects of Nevada air ebb away from her skin as a faint drizzle of Montana rain began to coat her skin. Despite the air conditioning on the plane, she felt a curious glow of warmth from the temperate rain; as if coming home again were triggering a comfort she hadn't felt since childhood.  
  
Rain. It rarely ever rained in Vegas, and she found that she had missed the steady beat of it while she was there. I fact, there were many things she missed about her hometown. The warm fires, and the scent of clean air...the innocence of it all. Innocence was often said to be bliss, and Catherine Willows found herself wishing more than once that she were in possession of this bliss again.  
  
She hadn't been home since Rick had left her for their landlady, Shantara, in all her glory as a former-stripper. To give the woman credit, Catherine knew that she wouldn't have discovered how lucrative exotic dancing really was, if not for the early morning glimpses into Shantara's lifestyle. The older woman had arrived home at all hours of the morning, waving wads of crisp bills as the wide-eyed seventeen year old Catherine hung over the upstairs banister, looking down on a world in which she had no power at all.  
  
The day that Rick had left her, Catherine knew she wanted that power for herself. To hold the lives of men in the palm of her hand night after night. To feel as if she were somehow, if even only in the most twisted sense of the word, needed.  
  
It took but an hour to reach the apartment her parents had rented for themselves, deep within the more 'citified' areas of Bozeman. Her mother had always been one for the city, but the rancher in her father had desired clean air and room to breathe, and they'd lived on the ranch for most of their married lives when Catherine came along. Kicking and screaming, she remember her mother telling her that she'd looked quite a bit like a newborn calf, breaking into the world with the declaration that she wasn't going to take crap from powerful jerks who were used to dishing it out all the time. In that respect, she had been told she was quite a bit like her mother as well.  
  
But Catherine was a daydreamer, something that had not been tolerated by her parents. Something in her that they had tried to repress, wanting her to focus more on the tasks they gave her, the things she needed to do in order for them to survive. More often then not, she was forced to sacrifice her goals for the greater good, as her parents had called it, unable to let the musings of her mind take her where she wanted to be. She'd always resented them for that. Their inability to understand her needs.  
  
And now, with Eddie having left her as well, with a daughter she loved and a habit she didn't...returning home to admit her shortcomings to her parents was the last thing she had wanted. To admit that daydreaming had gotten her into a far larger mess than she had ever imagined...in her mind, it was the greatest sacrifice she could ever make. The sacrifice of her individuality.  
  
Her hand sat poised centimeters from the door, prepared to knock. But before she could, it flew open and she came face to face with her mother. Like looking into a mirror, it was, with the elder woman in the Burke family having shoulder length blond hair, much like Catherine's, her eyes pools of unadulterated blue, holding a lifetime of troubles and trials within the wide irises. At the sight of her daughter, those eyes widened further, and Kay Burke stared into the face of a ghost whom she had made all attempts to erase from her memory.  
  
TBC. 


	2. Lifelines

Chapter 2: Lifelines  
  
"Hello, Mama." Catherine kept her voice low as she adjusted her jacket, black leather suddenly stifling in the heat of her mother's intense gaze. It had been so long...she couldn't remember the hair at Kay's temples being so grey, or the delicate, gold-framed bifocals perched upon a regal, upturned nose. Her eyes were the same shade of blue as Catherine's; with a splash of grey mirroring a storm-tossed sea...much like the storm she knew was raging within both of their minds.  
  
"Catherine." Her mother replied, acknowledging her daughter's presence in the doorway of her home. Her voice was steady, even, and carried none of the warmth that a mother's voice normally would. "How much do you need now?"  
  
"Mama, please." Brushing stray locks of hair from her face, Catherine took the time to regard her mother, calm her pounding heart, and collect her scattered thoughts. Kay hadn't always been the easiest person to talk to...and it hadn't helped that Catherine's greatest aspiration was to run away with her boyfriend at the earliest possible opportunity. "I'm here.... I came to show you something."  
  
"What?" Crossing her arms, Kay raised her eyebrows and leaned heavily against the doorframe, not seeming prepared to extend any particular courtesy to her offspring. "The last time you came here, Catherine, you wanted back in. Back into the life, your father and I gave you, that you gave up to runaway with that boy you adored so much. And where did that get you? Waitressing, taking other people's dirty dishes when you couldn't even air your own dirty laundry. I didn't raise my daughter that way."  
  
"I'm not just your daughter anymore, Mama. I've got a daughter of my own, now. Lindsey. You'd love her. She's got my eyes, I think...and she's stubborn as hell. Reminds me of someone." Her lips quirked upward in the form of a smile, and yet...yet it didn't feel like one, strangely out of place on her face.   
  
"I have a picture." Catherine added, digging around in her cluttered purse until she located a sleek black wallet. There was no need for her to search endlessly for the photo, for she had no others in there, not even one of Eddie.  
  
Handing it to her mother, Catherine saw the build-up of tears in her eyes. With her thumb, Kay stroked the picture lovingly, admiring her very first grandchild with admiration. As if somehow little Lindsey melted the ice that had formed between the two Burke women.  
  
"Who's the father?" Kay asked, hope in her voice. Maybe her daughter had turned out all right after all.  
  
"His name is Eddie Willows...he's..." The lump in her throat, planted there at the first glimpse of her estranged mother, began to swell as Catherine struggled to spew forth the words she needed to describe her relationship with Eddie. "He...was...my husband. We're getting a divorce, Mama...but Lindsey's doing fine."  
  
Her hands had begun to shake, and Catherine slipped them into her pockets, right hand fingering the plastic baggie she'd managed to stuff into the lining of her coat before departing from home.   
  
"A divorce?" Her mother's voice cracked.   
  
Catherine winced at the tone. She knew fully well her mother's beliefs about divorce. It was just another event in Catherine's ever-turbulent world that her mother didn't understand. Life and it's trials had led Catherine away from her faith, and as she ran a finger over the bag in her pocket, she wondered what it would have been like if she'd never gone astray.  
  
But it had, and there was nothing she could do about it now. It had been stupid of her to come here expecting even the slightest of sympathy. The life she had then, and the one she had now seemed too far apart for her to ever have considered coming back.  
  
"Yes." She managed a slight smile, taking the picture of Lindsey and turning it back in her direction. "It's better for Lindsey...and for me...if we do it this way."  
  
What she didn't tell her mother was that she'd discovered Eddie in the bathroom, having his way with a whore from the club down the street...a woman whose thighs and breasts seemed to have caught more action from Catherine's lustful husband than Catherine knew she ever could. She didn't want that kind of attention anymore.  
She inhaled sharply, fingers now squeezing the contents of the bag within her pocket as if it was a lifeline...and it was, in a way. If there were any easier option available to utilize in telling her mother exactly what she needed...but there could be nothing easier. And she needed...badly...to collect her thoughts.  
  
"Excuse me, Mama...can you just...excuse me?" She made the escape, down the front steps and into the darkened interior of her rental car, shaded windows excluding the world from a moment she didn't want anyone to share. But the person knocking on the window...didn't want to be shut out anymore.  
  
TBC. 


	3. Terrycloth Robe Comforts

Making Beds  
By: Manda and Allison  
  
Chapter 3: Terrycloth Robe Comforts  
  
A/N: It's a bit longer than the last two chapters, complete with a small flashback... Sorry for the wait. And enjoy!  
  
Catherine shrank back to the opposite side of the vehicle, plastic bag in hand. In truth the stash she kept in her coat pocket had been there for one reason, and one reason only. As a reminder of a habit that had led her nowhere in life except into a swirling black hole that seemed to pull her farther and farther downwards. But at that moment, after standing face to face with the woman she hadn't seen in years, and seeing the look on her face, one full of shame and disappointment, she longed for the mind numbing affects of the drug once more.  
  
"Catherine. Catherine, I know it's you. Come out and give your father a proper hello," a booming male voice called from outside the door. Hugh Burke's voice was thick with tension and anticipation. As if he wasn't sure whether he wanted to hug his daughter when she came out of the beat-up rental car, or hurt her for all the worry she had put him through.  
  
Stuffing the unopened bag in her pocket, Catherine let in a deep breathe and set her hand on the lock. Unsure of what she should do.  
  
"Coming, Daddy." She leaned back against the smooth upholstery for a moment, puffing air from the corner of her mouth to push stray bangs away from her face. The memories of childhood were vague, but she could remember the nights her father's voice would boom up the stairs and into her bedroom, calling her to the dinner table, or to feed the cows before bedtime. She'd never enjoyed that chore, but came without resistance, taking the time to stuff condoms or copies of Playgirl underneath her mattress. The entrance to teenage years had given her a glimpse to her future, and she'd been drawn to the forbidden fruit. Daring outfits, cajoling her older schoolyard friends...these tactics had gotten her what she wanted, and she'd never been caught with the unclean goods.  
  
As she exited the vehicle, she hastily stuffed the bag deeper into her coat pocket, embracing her father's bulky form with shaky arms and a quickly beating heart. "Hello, daddy."  
  
"Hello, Velvet." Childhood on a ranch had also introduced many a horse movie, on Saturday nights with the overstuffed couch and a bowl full of popcorn. National Velvet had become her favorite movie, and as young Catherine constantly babbled off lines from the film, her father quickly pegged her with the name she most admired. With hair like velvet, he told her, it would be a fitting nickname.  
  
Hugh Burke wrapped his arms around his eldest daughter, a bit shaky as he did so. He'd never, in his heart, wanted her to stay away from home for so long, and regretted that he'd ever let her get away in the first place. As he gazed upon her now mature, beautiful features, he realized he hadn't even spoken to her since that fateful day in August when she 'd last shown up on their doorstep, begging for a second chance.  
  
And as the cool Montana rain began to quicken in pace, Catherine pressed closer to her father, hearing the beat of his heart rise above the sound of water beating upon the pavement. It was a calming sound, soothing to her nerves and her state of mind...and she dreamt of what it would have been like, had they never been estranged for so long.  
  
"So what has my velvet pony been up to?" The question was weak, strained, as if the man was at a loss as to how one would open a conversation with a stranger. And that's what she was, a stranger, no matter what name she carried, or what familiarities she shared with these people. A stranger in a strange land, asking for directions down an uncertain path.  
  
"I'm a forensic scientist." She pulled away and glanced up into eyes as green as the grass between the streets and the sidewalks, weak stalks poking up and standing to provide a glimpse of nature in civilization.   
  
His smile was bright, pride radiating from his face. "I always knew you'd make it Velvet, have you spoken to your mother about it yet?"  
  
"No," she replied, tearing her eyes from his. She knew if she stared at them long enough, they'd find a way to dig their way into her soul, and unveil her secrets. "I didn't get that far."  
  
"Well, then, Catherine Marie Willows...we'll just have to do that now." He looped her arm through his and took her hand, patting it gently as they made their way back up the stairs and through the front door, where the entry branched into the deeper catacombs of the apartment: living room on the right, kitchenette on the left, staircase straight ahead of them. Quite different from the sprawling, single floor ranch house Catherine could remember as a child...but without the footsteps of giggling children, there was little point in such a childhood dream existing any longer.  
  
"We have a guest room up the stairs, if you're planning on staying long." Her father was a big man, that being an unspoken requirement for running a ranch, and Catherine had a difficult time picturing he and her mother living in such a small, confined space. The wide-shouldered, now cheerful parent stood beside her in the doorway, large right hand gesturing up the stairs. "The door to the right...across the hall from the bathroom."  
  
"Thanks...I'll only be staying for a few days." She'd left her things in the car, having been uncertain as to her father's reaction to her presence. As they stood there, a silence ebbing between them, Hugh Burke gave his daughter a prideful glance, up and down, and finally spoke.  
  
"You're beautiful, Catherine...a bit different than I remember you, but just as beautiful as you were when you were my little girl."  
  
"Except I'm not you're little girl anymore." Catherine folded her arms across her chest, letting a playful smirk appear on her face.  
  
"Cat, you may be all grown up. But you'll always be my little girl." He hugged her once again before motioning for her to head up the stairs. "I'll go grab your things...you go wash up. Then we'll catch up. You're going to catch a cold in those wet clothes."  
  
"Sure," she replied stifling a yawn and pushing her wet hair behind her ears. Suddenly she was cold, and she hugged herself tighter in efforts to fight off the chill.  
  
The flight of stairs was short, and upon reaching the top Catherine entered the small bathroom, corners of her mouth quirking up once again at the decor, much like that of her own bathroom back home. Walls were eggshell white, sky-blue rugs thrown haphazardly over mottled blue-and-white linoleum. The shower stall was in the corner, and quickly she stripped, stepping into it and allowing the warm water to wash over her shivering form. Towels were piled up on a rack beside the stall, fluffy masses folded in alternating piles of blue, gray, and white. She'd always had a fondness for blue, attracted to the color in the sky, sun glistening on the ocean, and the mirthful glints in Grissom's eyes when they worked a case together. Apparently, she hadn't simply come into the love of blue on her own...genetics certainly had a say.  
  
"Cath....your things are in your room, and your old bathrobe is on the hook behind the bathroom door!"   
  
Her father's voice crept through the bathroom door and thick veil of steam, and Catherine smiled. It was strange to be among the home folk again, hearing the faint traces of Montana in their voices, when she'd become so accustomed to hearing diversity, as Vegas was rife with.  
  
She stepped out of the shower twenty minutes later, droplets of warm water reacting with the cool bathroom air and causing her skin to become riddled with delicate goosebumps. She dried quickly and reached for the robe her father had spoken of, lifting a terrycloth article from the hook and regarding it thoughtfully. Edged with pink lace, the 'housecoat', as she'd called it as a child, was embroidered at the sleeves with tiny roses, and at the breast, thread curled into a recognizable 'C.M.B'. Sighing heavily, she recognized it as the robe she had been given a year before her departure, for her birthday, and that her parents had kept it around meant so much.  
  
At the time, the robe, now faded, had been a size to large for her. Money was always tight in the Burke household, so any new item was bought to last, and the robe was no exception. But Catherine loved it nonetheless. Upon opening it on her 16th birthday, she had squealed with delight at the prospect of something new, not used, and completely hers. A tiny bit of soft feminity, in contrast to the daring, dangerous clothing she often snuck out of her house in. More her than anything else that she had ever owned.  
  
"Try it on sweetie," her mom had told her with a warm smile. And she slipped into it, the soft terry cloth comforting to the touch.  
She wanted to, now...to slip into the comfort as she would a warm bath, basking in the faint recollection of childhood. But the robe was too small, and would barely fit over her arm, let alone torso. So she pulled it from the hook and stood, naked and dripping with cold water, holding the soft garment in her hand, and wondering if Lindsey would someday find it as pleasurable as she had.  
  
"Catherine! It's time for dinner!" She could hear Hugh...her father's voice coming from downstairs, and she hastily wrapped herself in a towel from the floor, darting across the hall to dress. Grey tank top, form-fitting black pants...brushing her hair until it shone like spun gold. Kay had always run her fingers through it, in better days, telling her daughter that someday, she could be just like Rapunzel, with golden hair that rivaled the fictional princess.  
  
'If only life were like a fairy-tale,' she thought as she descended the stairs, knowing full well it never was. Nor could it ever be.  
  
TBC. 


	4. Running Away

Making Beds  
By: Manda and Allison  
  
Chapter 4: Running Away  
  
Catherine slowly moved the food around her plate, pushing her mashed potatoes into small mountains. Her mother's gaze remained fixed upon her throughout the meal. Just a glance could send Catherine's heart into a nervous frenzy; Kay's intense stare was enough to make her want to run and hide.  
  
"Catherine, aren't you going to eat your supper?" Kay asked pointedly.  
  
"I ate on the plane," she lied, averting her gaze back to her food. "I'm not really all that hungry."  
  
"A home cooked meal would do you some good, I hear airplane food is horrible. Look at you; you're nothing but skin and bones. Eat, your pork chops are getting cold."  
  
She fought the urge to respond with an obedient 'Yes, Mom', instead choosing to slice into a skimpy pork chop with the knife that rested by her right hand. A trickle of watery  
Crimson fluid began to leak forth, and Catherine stared at it impassively, as Kay began to  
chatter, flustered, and reached to whisk the plate away.  
  
"Sweetheart, I'm so sorry...I thought I'd cooked that one all the way through."  
  
"It's all right...I'm fine. I've never been much for pork, anyway, Mom. Thank you." The mashed potatoes she had somehow managed to ingest were lodged within her stomach; hardening into a lump with each passing moment she sat at the dining table. As Kay hustled into the kitchen, murmuring apologies and intent on fetching another plate of food, Catherine cast a pleading glance at her father, who nodded gently and pushed back as Catherine hastily left the table.  
  
Entering the living room, she scanned around until she found the cordless phone sitting among a stack of old newspapers. Grabbing it, she violently punched in a number she knew by heart. All she got was a busy signal.  
  
"Damnit, pick up."  
  
"You'll not talk like that in this house Catherine."  
  
"I'm not a child mom, you can't push me around."  
  
There it was again. That stare. Sometimes she wondered how her mother could look so cold. It was making her stomach churn and Catherine fought the urge to run into the bathroom and empty the contents of her stomach.   
  
"This is my home, and you will respect it." Came her mother's stern reply.  
  
"Respect it? Like you respect me? Hell, you've been nothing but domineering since I walked in the door! Face it, your little girl's grown up and doing well. And you had nothing to do with it. You aren't mad because I left, because I ran off with Rick and waitressed. No, you're angry because you can't and never could control me."  
  
"Catherine Marie Burke! Don't you dare tell me how I feel. Do you even know what you put your father and I through? Wondering everyday where you were? Not knowing if you were ok. You could have been lying dead in a ditch somewhere or worse!"  
  
"Damnit! You turned me away Mom. I came back and you turned me away! If you were so worried why didn't you take me back, huh?" Catherine's face was red, tears threatening to spill over her hot cheeks. Clenching her fists tightly, she let her fingernails dig into the skin of her palms.  
  
"Come on you two, this is no time to argue. Let's all just settle down for a sec," she saw her father leaning against the doorframe between the living room and kitchen.   
  
Balling up the hem of her shirt, Catherine turned away from her parents, the portable phone still clutched in her hands, knuckles whitening at the effort. The coolness of the plastic, the feel of the rubber buttons beneath the fingertips...was odd, and she felt infused by the connection the phone provided to Grissom.  
  
She turned again, facing them both and holding the phone up as she spoke. "I think it's the perfect time to discuss it, Mom. To discuss how, even though I can't reach him, I know that my best friend will be here for me when I need him...here for me in a way that you weren't, when I came home and needed my mother and father the most."  
  
"Catherine, sweetheart...we did what we thought was best at the time."  
  
"Well, if that's what you thought was best, Mom...then I hope to god that I'm not going to become that kind of parent. For Christ's sake- I had a drug problem...no money, no place to call home...and you left me on the streets to fend for myself. Daddy..." She turned her face to her father, who had chosen to remain silent for the time being, his warmth evident in his wide stormy eyes. "Daddy wanted to try, didn't he? But you didn't let him...and god...he couldn't stand up for himself."  
  
Kay inhaled, unsure of what exactly she should say next. Quickly she glanced over at her husband, who immediately raised his hands in defeat. "You didn't want to be here, Catherine." She finally got out, her words sticking on her tongue. "You were running away from us before you could even learn how to walk. Your father and I...we...we made a mutual decision. We did what we thought was best. What other choice did we have?"  
  
"You had a choice, Mommy...you always had a choice." The pressure had gotten to her, the lack of cocaine doing what it always did in tough situations, and Catherine pressed a hand to her stomach to quell the nausea as she continued to press on. "If you could have just talked to me..."  
  
"You always wanted attention, Velvet...you have since you were born...and we couldn't give you what you wanted...so we assumed that, when you left, the world had what you wanted...what we never could provide." Her father looked old, then, Hugh Burke suddenly aging before her very eyes, the years she'd spent away taking a toll on his features...and her mother, as well, began to shrink and shrivel, shadows forming beneath her eyes.  
  
"But I'm not back for that, now...don't you know that?" Catherine's hands fell to her sides, and she let the phone dangle, holding it by the antenna. "I'm all grown up...I've got a job, and friends...and my baby...and I don't want your attention now...I just want you to love me." The pain in her stomach and the pain of her throat constricting afforded little time, and without further word, Catherine pushed her way past the silent Burkes, and up the stairs.  
  
By the time she had reached the top of the steps her parents had regained enough of their senses to try to call her back down. They were met with the sound of the bathroom door slamming; so loud, in fact, that they were sure the neighbors could have heard it. But Catherine could have cared less. Setting the phone on the bathroom floor beside her, she gripped the sides of the toilet and threw up what little dinner she had in her stomach.   
  
It hurt, really it did, like the time when she was ten, and her favorite pony, Gilbert, had become restless, kicking her in the stomach. It hurt so much, and she could still remember crouching on the ground, vomiting for what seemed like hours before her could get her to stand up; ushering her inside and upstairs to the bed. There hadn't been any sort of activity for the young Catherine for the remainder of the week, and she could remember sitting by the window, elbows on the sill as she sat in her thin cotton nightgown with the paisley print, watching her dad and Gilbert haul Gilbert into a horse trailer.   
  
He hadn't gone to the glue farm, but to a farm nearby where there were no 'little girls' he had later told her.  
  
"Bullshit," she muttered and threw up again, wiping her mouth with a nearby washcloth, and picking up the phone to dial. If Grissom were there...he'd talk, reassure her that despite everything, coming home had been the right thing to do all along.  
  
She wasn't sure if she'd believe him...but just hearing his voice would be enough.   
  
TBC. 


	5. The finale, or is it?

Making Beds  
  
By: Manda and Allison  
  
Chapter 5: The finale, or is it?  
  
Punching the numbers in anxiously, Catherine lifted the phone to her ear and prayed that Grissom would pick up. She didn't relish having to try his cellphone if he wasn't sitting in his office. Normally she wouldn't have even tried to call him at CSI, but the need to hear his voice, her name off his lips was something that she knew she needed.  
  
"Please, Gris...come on pick up."  
  
The ringing of the phone was hollow in her ears, and as she heard his voice on the other end, relief washed over her.  
  
"Grissom."  
  
"Gris, it's me." She folded her legs beneath her on the shaggy bathroom rug, toes curling into the soft material.  
  
"Catherine...how's your trip?" She already felt homesick, hearing the sounds of conversation behind him-wherever Grissom was, it was somewhere within the catacombs of the Las Vegas Crime Lab, and she already ached to be back there, drinking break room swill and analyzing evidence. She didn't much care for the evidence she was looking at now.  
  
"Could be better. Bit of turbulence- I think I'm in for a bumpy ride." She leaned forward to inspect her toenails, mind searching for anything she could say to let him know how much she needed him right then. "I guess what they say is true- you can never go home again."  
  
"Bullshit Cath, stop being cryptic. I know that tone, what's wrong?" he asked, his voice soft and steady.  
  
"Nothing..." she replied hesitating. "And I'm not being cryptic."  
  
"Yes, you are. I invented that word remember? I know you; you wouldn't be calling me here at CSI unless something was bothering you. Now please, Catherine, tell me what's wrong."  
  
"I-"  
  
"You what?"   
  
His voiced warmed her soul as she listened to it, the very sound of it enough to release some of the tension that had formed in the pit of her stomach. His breath was soft and even, her heart slowing as it became even with it.  
  
"I just needed to hear your voice."  
  
"Catherine." There was the chuckle- that soft chuckle she'd come to appreciate as the height of the Gil Grissom humor scale. He was never one to display hoards of emotion- although in her minds eye she could picture his smile, the bright spark in his eye, as he would tease her about some way she'd spoken, or her continuity with the turkey club at lunchtime. "The second you hang up the phone I'll start making you a tape you can carry along on these long trips away from home. You can put them in Lindsey's old Teddy Ruxpin and cuddle up in bed at midnight."  
  
"Don't you patronize me, Gil Grissom." She began to idly toy with the rug fibers, curling them around the length of her fingernail. "I'm going to book a flight back tomorrow...would you pick me up at the airport?"  
  
"You've only been there a day, and you're going to leave, just like that?"  
  
  
  
"Gil Grissom-"  
  
"Stick it out for a few more days. You told me before you left, that this was your chance to make things right. Work it out, you might regret it if you don't."  
  
"Gil, you don't understand. It's more complicated than that."  
  
"More complicated than that? Catherine, the only thing more complicated are the dynamics of our relationship, and if you can figure out those, the sky's the limit."  
  
"And who says I've figured them out?" She responded quickly, holding the handset closer to her ear, as if the pressure would place him in closer proximity. "Gil...of all the people I've wanted with me at every step of this...you're the only one I could possibly have cared to bring along. And if you could have torn yourself away for just one week..."  
  
"So now this is about us?" His voice was harder now, and she winced at the tone.  
  
"No...it's just..."  
  
"Just what, Catherine? What else is there to figure out?"  
  
"Well if you haven't figured it out yet, then maybe it's not even worth the trouble!"   
  
"Figured what out? Catherine-" His end of the line went silent for a moment, and as she parted her lips to speak, he continued. "Catherine...I don't know how to deal with...Are you in love with me?"   
  
It was a straightforward question, something she'd always wondered, but never expected him to ask. And he'd asked it...with such a daring that she found herself unable to respond, until his voice speaking her name urged that sensation onward.  
  
  
  
"Cath? You there? Catherine?"  
  
She felt like running, away, as fast as her feet would take her. Like the first night she had caught Eddie cheating on her, with that sleazy bimbo Julie from down the street. Julie, whose hazel eyes had glared at Catherine with pure triumph as she opened the door to the small apartment her and Eddie had been sharing at the time. They hadn't even been married then. Just two people, snorting and fucking, tangled in the sweaty sheets of their bed, proclaiming their love for each other during cocaine-induced stupors.   
  
It wasn't real. She wasn't supposed to care. When the high had worn off, she knew it all was a lie.  
  
She thought she could live without him. She swore to herself, as he stared at her, that she could.  
  
But when Eddie stumbled out of bed, draped in only the sheet that had covered the two adulterous lovers, swearing it would never happen again, she'd believed him. And taken him back anyway.  
  
She'd felt like running then, and she'd stayed. Maybe this time, she should go. She had lived seven years of her life like that, wanting to run as far as she could get. Maybe this time she actually would. Maybe this was the right choice.   
  
Setting the phone down for a moment, she felt her stomach heave again, and the rest of her dinner spilled into the depths of the toilet in front of her. Looking longingly back at it one more time, she pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her head in them, the tears slowly slipping down her face. Her father was pounding on the door outside. She could hear Grissom's voice yelling on the other end of the phone, but for some reason, she just didn't care anymore.  
  
"Velvet...Catherine, sweetheart...open the door." Her father's voice broke through first, louder in volume than Grissom's pleas coming from the handset on the floor. Wiping a fragment of toilet paper across her mouth, Catherine struggled to her feet and unlocked the door, falling forward into her father's embrace wearily.  
  
"Sweetheart...your mom doesn't mean to say it the way she did...she loves you, you know that. But it hurt her when you went away."  
  
"Daddy...I'm not your little girl anymore...and I don't have anything else to say." Catherine swallowed, the lump in her throat growing larger as she glanced back at the phone, the tiny voice of Gil Grissom still shouting from the other end. "I'm going back to Vegas tomorrow morning...I don't want to be here anymore." And with those words she turned, reaching down to pick up the handset, her finger firmly pressing upon the 'off' button, hushing Grissom's voice altogether.  
  
"Catherine, you're in no shape to go anywhere." Hugh wrapped his arms around his daughters' slight frame, leading her out of the bathroom and across the hall, back to the guest bedroom. "I let go of you once, I don't intend to do it again."  
  
"Daddy--"   
  
"Velv...Catherine, baby. Let me talk, just for a second. Stay, one more day, just one. I don't want to lose you again. I don't think I could live with myself if I did. And as much you she doesn't want to admit it, your mother couldn't either."  
  
"I'll believe that when I see it."   
  
"Catherine, you're not going to have a chance to see it if you don't stick around. If there's one thing your mother and I taught you that you seem to have remembered, it's that you don't quit. You're not a quitter, sweetheart- and I don't want you to start because of us."  
  
"I'm sorry, Daddy...but I think I'll consider it 'a graceful retreat'." It all felt like too much, this reunion, this attempt at piecing together something she knew couldn't be repaired without...so much work that she wasn't sure she could finish. It just seemed like too much to tackle alone, and she wasn't sure she wanted to, anymore. She just wanted Grissom, Lindsey...everything back home.  
  
"Cath-"  
  
"Daddy, just leave, please, I really just need to be alone right now." And with that, Hugh, sullenly strode out the door, leaving Catherine alone on the bed.  
  
Sitting down on the bed and pulling her knees up, Catherine wrapped her arms around them, shivering. How she'd give anything for this nightmare of a trip to end, and fast. Her body seemed to have aged years in a matter of a few minutes, her eyes barely able to stay open. Within a matter of minutes, she was asleep, curled up in a small ball on the king size guest bed.   
  
*~ When you wake, you shall have...all the pretty little horses. ~*  
  
She blinked, easing her aching body into a sitting position upon the gaudy floral comforter, the cotton stuffing contorted into shape beneath her. It hadn't been the most comforting nap- and for a moment, she found herself able to smile, remembering worse places, worse positions.  
  
  
  
But the position she was in now- she slipped off the bed and began stuffing hastily unpacked items just as hastily back into her suitcase, the clasp snapping shut with such a final sound that it made her heart contort. This was it- this was the sound she'd heard when she left Eddie, the noise echoing continuously in her head. Past ghosts, skeletons in her suitcase...and she quickly turned the luggage key in its lock, blinking back tears as she realized she was going to have to hide them away again, until she could find a way to set them free.  
  
Taking the suitcase in her hand, she headed out into the hall and down the short flight of steps, counting them as she went. 1,2,3,4... Eight more till she'd be at the bottom, ready to hide the key to her past away for good. Out of the corner of her eye, Catherine saw Kay leaning expectantly against the archway leading into the dining room, which was adjacent to the front hall. This, her final stab at Catherine, watching her daughter leave once again, and thus proving her theory correct.   
  
"You're running again," she commented dryly.  
  
"I wouldn't exactly call it running," Catherine retorted as she reached the bottom of the steps. "More like fleeing ...for the sake of my sanity."   
  
"Your sanity?" The anger flashed in Kay's bright eyes, bright with the tears of a mother scorned and wounded...again. It had all come full circle, it seemed, the moments of days gone by revisiting the family whose old wounds had never really healed. "Has ever a day gone by, Catherine, when you've even considered my sanity? Your father and I have worried about you every day..."  
  
"And it shows, mother." Catherine cut in, dryly, shifting her eyes toward the figure nearby. "It showed in every letter I never got, every phone call I never heard...and when I look at my refrigerator, I can see it in every birthday card you never sent me...and every day I've lived without hearing your voice. The way I see it...I can run, and don't need to hide...because you won't come looking. That's the way I'll keep my sanity in tact."  
  
Without another word, Catherine walked forward; towards the door, towards the finale of the play, the last moment of the last act. But as she opened the heavy oak door, and gazed upon the figure behind it, she realized that this was only the beginning.  
  
TBC. 


	6. Surprise!

Making Beds  
  
By: Manda and Allison  
  
A/N: So, I was going over this tonight…and though it's short where we left off looked like an excellent stopping point (Jid I hope this is ok) … so here is chapter 6. It's incredibly short, but what the hey, here you go.  
  
Chapter 6: Surprise!  
  
"Mommy!" The first sensation was of a small body striking her legs, nearly causing her to fall backward onto the oriental carpet strewn across the entryway floor. Lindsey's sticky hands clutched at her pant leg, blond braids slung over lavender clad shoulders, overalls undone as she gazed up into her mother's cobalt eyes. Her eyes mirrored the color, but held the fountain of youth, which Catherine swore kept her from getting old.  
  
  
  
"Baby." She knelt, embracing the small figure, eyes darting upward to glare accusingly at the child's traveling companion. Gil Grissom held a suitcase and child's L.L. Bean backpack, the scent of traveling, jelly, and old leather wafting from his body. She'd always loved that jacket, and the sight of him...the familiarity of her daughter and his jacket made it seem like she was home again.   
  
"Hey." He greeted her warmly, smiling that uniquely Grissom smile; the one that made her knees go weak. Immediately she felt bad for hanging up on him the night before.  
  
"Gil…hey." She smiled in return, not quite sure what to say to him. She felt a sweeping sense of guilt overcome her. How many despicable things had she said to him over the phone? Too many for her to count. Now here he was, standing outside her doorway on the front porch, with the one thing she longed for—her daughter. "Gil, I'm…sorry, about last night. I was angry…"  
  
"No need to explain…really, it was nothing. I'm over it."  
  
"Yes, I do need to explain, I should have never acted like that…I was being selfish."  
  
"I should have come with you in the first place. You had every right to be angry."  
  
"But I never had any right to take it out on you, and I know that." She swept her attention-deprived daughter into her arms, hugging her close. "It was nice of Mr. Grissom to bring you with him, wasn't it?"  
  
  
  
"Silly, Mommy. He's Gil Grissom." Catherine chuckled, fastening the undone overalls before she set her child upon the floor, and turned to the figure leaning against the archway to the next room. "Momma- this is your granddaughter, Lindsey Madison Willows."  
  
  
  
"Hi, Grandma!" The small body hurtled into the legs of her grandmother before Catherine could call a stop to it, and yet somehow Kay Burke did not react in the way her daughter had assumed she might. The child was a splash of water to the elder woman, and she lifted Lindsey into her arms with an ease with which she had never lifted her own children.  
  
"How come I've never seen you before?"  
  
  
  
"The same reason I haven't seen you, sweetheart. Your mommy and I live very far away from each other." Kay looked into the eyes, the eyes of her daughter and the son-in-law she never knew, and smiled. "But that's all going to change now, isn't it?"  
  
"Momma…" Catherine smiled nervously, and tried her hand at changing the subject, "This is Gil Grissom, my…"  
  
"… Boyfriend, if she'll have me," Grissom finished for her as he moved to put his arm around her. 'I love you too' he whispered into her ear, and Catherine felt her heart melt.  
  
"You're not…" Kay looked at Lindsey, and back towards Gil.  
  
Gil quickly figured out what she was getting at and responded, "Oh no, I'm just the chaperone on this little trip…Cath you didn't tell her about Eddie?"  
  
"She did, it must have just slipped my mind…So Mr. Grissom; what is it that you do?"  
  
"He plays with bugs." Lindsey offered, and Catherine chuckled at the determination with which her daughter pushed her way into the conversation.   
  
  
  
"I'm an entomologist, Mrs. Burke." Grissom turned his head, smiling into Catherine's hair as his lips touched her scalp, and he could feel her tension slipping away. "I work in the Las Vegas crime lab with your daughter."  
  
  
  
"I see." There was still a clear amount of shock in the motherly features, although  
  
Catherine hadn't yet determined as to whether the shock was for her fortune or the amazement that there was fortune at all. "Then my daughter is lucky to have you, Mr. Grissom. And if you'd like to stay with us, we'll feel lucky to have you all."  
  
"We'd be delighted," Grissom replied, Catherine throwing him a death glare as she pasted on her best smile and pretended to go along with the idea.   
  
"I don't know whether to kiss you, for coming…or kill you for making me stay," she whispered into his ear before leading him to the kitchen and into the past life she'd worked so hard to hide.  
  
TBC. 


End file.
